Hudson Yards

New York Yimby has uncovered a new rendering of the FXFOWLE-designed 3 Hudson Boulevard showing an updated design featuring a 300-foot spire that would make the building the tallest in the Hudson Yards complex, and one of the tallest in the city.

Reports indicate that the building, formerly known as the Girasole, would rise a total of 1,350 feet, placing it just below 432 Park Avenue’s 1,397 foot peak. Approximately 1,050 feet of the building’s height would be occupiable, with 1.8 million square feet of office space spread across 66 total floors.

With construction on New York's Hudson Yards development racing forward, developers Related Companies and Oxford Properties Group have revealed plans for the latest addition to the complex: a 35,000-square-foot food hall featuring dining by celebrity chef José Andrés located within KPF’s already-open 10 Hudson Yards.

Construction has officially begun on Vessel, the 15-story tall staircase sculpture designed by Heatherwick Studio that will serve as the centerpiece of New York’s massive new Hudson Yards development. To build the structure, 75 individual units are being prefabricated by Cimolai S.p.A. in their Monfalcone, Italy facility, then shipped to New York where they will be assembled on site. These first 10 of these pieces have now completed their 15-day overseas journey, with the remaining pieces scheduled to arrive on-site and put into place over the coming year.

Foster + Partners’ designs for the latest tower to be located within New York’s Hudson Yards megaproject have been revealed. Named 50 Hudson Yards, the building will rise 985 feet (300 meters) into the sky in becoming New York City’s fourth largest commercial office tower with 2.9 million gross square feet and the new home of leading investment firm BlackRock.

UPDATE: We've added a video of Thomas Heatherwick explaining the design of "Vessel," after the break!

Thomas Heatherwick is bringing a new public monument to New York City. Today, Heatherwick Studio revealed the first renderings of “Vessel,” a 15-story tall occupiable sculpture comprised of 154 intricately interconnecting flights of stairs that will serve as the centerpiece of the new Hudson Yards development in west Manhattan.

Hudson Yards is the largest private real estate development in the nation’s history. The site itself will include 17 million square feet of commercial and residential space; more than 100 shops and restaurants, including New York City’s first Neiman Marcus and signature restaurants by Chefs Thomas Keller, José Andrés and Costas Spiliadis; approximately 4,000 residences; 14-acres of public open space; a new 750-seat public school and Equinox® branded luxury hotel with more than 200 rooms – all offering unparalleled amenities for residents, employees and guests. Ten Hudson Yards – home to Coach Inc., L’Oréal USA, SAP, The Boston Consulting Group, VaynerMedia, Intersection and Sidewalk Labs – opened in May 2016.

Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Rockwell Group has released a new animation of “The Shed” (previously known as “The Culture Shed”), a convertible cultural center designed for New York City’sHudson Yards development overlooking The High Line. When complete, the building will contain 170,000 square feet of exhibition space for temporary installations, concerts, performances and other cultural productions. Watch in the video as The Shed grows out of its partnering residential skyscraper, also designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Rockwell Group, and transforms to serve various program types.

A part of Phase 1 of the Hudson Yards project, construction on The Shed began in mid-2015 and is scheduled to be completed in 2019. The venue will serve as the new home of several high profile events, including New York Fashion Week.

Developer Tishman Speyer has commissioned BIG to design a new office tower on the northern end of the High Line at Hudson Yards in New York City. Dubbed "The Spiral," the 1005-foot-tall tower is named after its defining feature - an "ascending ribbon of lively green spaces" that extend the High Line "to the sky," says Bjarke Ingels.

"The Spiral combines the classic Ziggurat silhouette of the premodern skyscraper with the slender proportions and efficient layouts of the modern high-rise," adds Ingels. "Designed for the people that occupy it, The Spiral ensures that every floor of the tower opens up to the outdoors creating hanging gardens and cascading atria that connect the open floor plates from the ground floor to the summit into a single uninterrupted work space. The string of terraces wrapping around the building expand the daily life of the tenants to the outside air and light.”

It has been over fifty years since Jane Jacobs' book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, revolutionized discourse on urban planning, and her words still carry a huge influence today. But in the intervening decades New York City has changed in ways Jacobs could never have imagined when she was writing in the 1960s. In a recent article for City Journal, Judith Miller tries to imagine how Jane Jacobs would have responded to some of New York City's recent projects - taking as examples the imminent domain actions and tax breaks that made Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards (now also known as Pacific Park) possible, the cluster of skyscrapers and public venues planned for Hudson Yards on the west side of Manhattan, and the supertall luxury condo towers that are beginning to cast their long shadows over Central Park. Read Miller's article in full here.

The largest private project New York City has seen in over 100 years may also be the smartest. In a recent article on Engadget, Joseph Volpe explores the resilience of high-tech ideas such as clean energy and power during Sandy-style storms. With construction on the platform started, the Culture Shed awaiting approval, and Thomas Heatherwick designing a 75-Million dollar art piece and park – the private project is making incredible headway. But with the technology rapidly evolving, how do investors know the technology won't become obsolete before its even built?

New York University’s Center for Urban Science and Progress has teamed up with the developers of Hudson Yards to transform the future 28-acre mixed-use neighborhood into the nations first “quantified community.” As Crain’s New York reports, the aim is to “use big data to make cities better places to live.” Information, from pedestrian traffic to energy production and resident activity levels, will be collected in order to study how cities can run efficiently and improve quality of living. You can read more on the subject, here.

The construction of Hudson Yards, the biggest private real estate development in the history of the United States and currently the largest development in New York City since the Rockefeller Center, is gaining momentum. The vast infrastructural project in the heart of the city is set to enclose an active rail yard with an expansive platform, paving the way for 28 acres (and 17 million square feet) of commercial and residential space. Housing over 100 commercial units, 5000 residences, 14 acres of open public space, an enormous school and luxury hotel all on top of a working train depot, the project will directly connect to a new subway station and meet with the High Line.

Related Companies founder Stephen Ross has commissioned London designer and architect Thomas Heatherwick to design what could be, according to the Wall Street Journal, “one of the most expensive works of public art in the world.” Planned to be the centerpiece of Related’s Hudson Yards project in Manhattan’s West Side, the estimated $75 million artwork and its surrounding 4-acre public space aims to become “new icon for the city.”

The expandable multi-use cultural venue dubbed "Culture Shed" is one of the most radical proposals to come out of New York'sHudson Yards Development Project. Designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro - the New York-based interdisciplinary practice that played a major role in designing the High Line - in collaboration with the Rockwell Group, this 170,000 square foot cultural center will be located at the south end of the Hudson Yards, with the main entrance located near the conclusion of the High Line at West 30th Street.

The west side of midtown Manhattan is probably one of the more unexplored areas of New York City by residents and tourists alike. Aside from the Jacob Javits Center, and the different programs off of the Hudson River Parkway that runs parallel to the waterfront, there is very little reason to walk through this industry – and infrastructure – dominated expanse of land full of manufacturers, body shops, parking facilities and vacant lots. The NYC government and various agencies, aware of the lost potential of this area, began hatching plans in 2001 to develop this 48-block, 26-acre section, bound by 43rd Street to the North, 8th Ave to the East, 30th Street to the South and the West Side Highway to the West.

The new Hudson Yards, NYC’s largest development, will be a feat of collaboration between many agencies and designers. The result will be 26 million square feet of new office development, 20,000 units of housing, 2 million square feet of retail, and 3 million square feet of hotel space, mixed use development featuring cultural and parking uses, 12 acres of public open space, a new public school and an extension of a subway line the 7 that currently terminates at Times Square-42nd Street, reintroducing the otherwise infrastructurally isolated portion of the city back into the life of midtown Manhattan. All this for $800 million with up to $3 billion in public money.